After a week of deliberations, jurors in the Los Angeles social media trial are still having a hard time coming to a decision, but a New Mexico panel swiftly found was neglect in protecting minors from predators on its various social media platforms. A move that will cost the owners of and Instagram up to $375 million in penalties, the jury determined. Returning a verdict after a day of deliberations, the Land of Enchantment jury declared Tuesday that the Mark Zuckerberg-founded tech giant violated the st ...

Disney‘s much heralded $1 billion investment in Open AI is over as the Sam Altman-led tech giant will be shuttering its standalone Sora text-to-video app “The deal is not moving forward,” an insider tells Deadline of the agreement then House of Mouse CEO Bob Iger reached last year with Altman. It is unclear how much of the $1 billion Disney had handed over to the IPO inclined Open AI and when and how they would be getting the money back — if at all. Right now, as the increasingly consumer facing Open AI l ...

EDITOR’S NOTE: After his recent column on theatrical windows contributed to Universal’s decision to preserve the 45-day window between theaters and the ancillary waterfall, Deadline asked Joseph M. Singer to weigh in on the continuing efforts by Paramount owners David and Larry Ellison to get the government to approve its plan to swallow Warner Bros Discovery. While speaking out against the merger doesn’t help his Elixir Media day job of setting up slate co-financing deals and producing films for the studi ...

Video game publisher Epic Games is laying off 1,000 workers, citing a drop in engagement with its signature title, Fortnite. In a memo to employees (read it in full below), CEO Tim Sweeney noted that the cuts are “unrelated to AI.” He said the layoffs will be paired with $500 million in cost savings from contracting marketing and “closing some open roles.” Sweeney said the moves are being prompted by simple mathematics. “We’re spending more than we’re making, and we have to make major cuts to keep the com ...

A group of Democratic senators is calling for FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to conduct a “full and independent” review Paramount‘s proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, citing its investment from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. Carr has said that the agency would have minimal oversight over the transaction, as it does not involve the transfer of ownership of broadcast stations. But in their letter, the Democrats, led by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), cited a provision of the Communications Act, in w ...

As state attorneys seek to stop Nexstar‘s merger with Tegna, a new group is appealing the FCC‘s greenlight to the massive broadcast merger, calling out Donald Trump‘s “unprecedented presidential directive” to “Get That Deal Done!” The plaintiffs in the case include Newsmax and a collection of state cable and broadband associations, including ones in Pennsylvania, Washington, Indiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. DirecTV, which has already filed a separate antitrust lawsuit, is also seeking to join the new la ...

EXCLUSIVE: In Starz‘s Q4 earnings report in February, the company called 2026 a “positive financial inflection point,” saying it would focus on profitability and generating positive free cash flow after its separation from Lionsgate. In addition to OTT subscriber growth and increasing content ownership, cost-reduction inevitably is part of the equation. That includes staff cuts. Starz underwent a round of layoffs Friday that impacted 7% of the company’s employees, Deadline has learned. The move, which is b ...

Wall Street is upbeat about the impact of Nexstar‘s $6.2 billion acquisition of local TV rival Tegna, mainly because it could trigger another wave of consolidation. That’s also the prevailing view across the industry, even among Nexstar’s biggest rivals. Nexstar announced the closing of the transaction Thursday evening, soon after the FCC and the Department of Justice said they had granted their approval. Legal challenges remain, however, with state attorneys general and major pay-TV operator DirecTV fil ...

A day after Nexstar said that it had closed its deal to buy Tegna, creating a broadcasting giant, California and seven other states filed an emergency motion to stop it. The motion for a temporary restraining order was filed Friday in Sacramento, seeking court action to halt integration and consolidation of the two companies. California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the other AGs filed suit to block the merger Wednesday, but were not seeking a TRO or a preliminary injunction. But that strategy changed aft ...

EXCLUSIVE: Warner Music Group and Netflix have set an exclusive multi-year first-look deal that will see the streamer make documentary series and films exploring the lives, music, and legacies of WMG’s artists and songwriters, past and present. Unigram, run by Amanda Ghost and Gregor Cameron, will serve as the production arm for WMG’s longform programming, working with the company to develop each project in collaboration with the artist or their estates. Warner Music Group’s CEO, Robert Kyncl, said: “The c ...